Response to Podcast and Article by Hicks

As I was listening to the podcast this week (prior to reading the article) before I even got 15 minutes into it, I already found myself relating to Boyd. Feeling such a strong sense of connection to her made me pause the podcast entirely and begin writing here. One thing that she talks about is that how  in high school she "just really didn't feel like [I] belonged" and that the internet allowed her "to connect to people around the globe" (Boyd). I couldn't believe how her experience in high school almost mirrored mine. I always struggled to fit in with my peers and never felt that sense of belonging until, as I've mentioned before, I joined an internet community. Through this community I was able to learn so many things about how people around the world lived, the different struggles they endured in terms of prejudice and racism. Just like Boyd and myself, this community was a place for those who didn't belong to find comfort and solace.

I had always been fairly sheltered and if I'm  being completely honest, I was unaware of the fact that things like racism and homophobia were still totally prevelant in so many places. Through the community I joined, I was told so many horror stories. One in particular that always stuck with me was how one of my friends in the community had come out as transgender in his school. Not only was he bullied by his peers, but some of his teachers were just as horrible. He was not allowed to use the bathroom during the school day for at least the first few months after coming out. No one accepted him, not his family, not his teachers, and especially not his peers. Often times he would tell us if he hadn't found our little community, chances were he would've continued attempting suicide until he succeeded. There were many people with similar stories of not belonging, and without online communities they may have never known what it feels like to have friends and belong.

Boyd also points out that a lot of people blame the internet for us becoming as racist society, however, she states that "we are a racist society, and we're just making it more visible online" and based on the stories I've heard,  in online communities, this is completely true. These people were being bullied and dealing with prejeduice within their schools, in their towns, and within their families. We cannot put blame on the internet for making society racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, when these things go on in everyday life either way. All the internet is doing is showing us just how bad people can be. Just because someone is more comfortable making judgements and expressing themselves from behind a screen, does not make them any less awful in person.

In the Hicks article we learn more about bad examples of digital literacy in the classroom, and how important it is to include technology in the classroom. This is something I find myself disagreeing with, as I think our society needs to take a step away from technology before it is too late. While I'm sure there are some good examples of using technology, I agree with Hicks that a lot of teachers don't incorporate the use of technology correctly. 

3/24 Response

My first thoughts on allsides.com was that that home page was very chaotic to look at. I also wasn't exactly sure what I should be exploring here, whether it be the websites layout or the articles. The site claims that "by making the political leanings of hundreds of media sources transparent, AllSides frees people from filter bubbles so we can understand the world- and each other" which sounds like a great idea in theory. While I don't exactly have a lot of extra time to be currently exploring this site, this will be a link I save so I can get a better look at it in the future.

 In regards to Christensen's chapter on writing essays, I found the different techniques she shares that are meant to get students to collect evidence. As the chapter continued I found myself completely agreeing with the quote "when students write for the teacher instead of writing out of a compelling need to speak out, the writing is often tedious, not worth writing, and not worth reading" (Christensen 123).  As someone who finds writing to typically be a waste of my own time (especially when I could be working or actually enjoying my life instead) I wonder how, as a techer, I can create assignments that aren't just wasting everyones time like most of the assignments I have done. However this also brings up the issue that anassignment might be interesting for one student but completely tedious for everyone else. At this point would you have to alter the assignment for each individual student?

Response to Standards

When I was first introduced to the standards, I found them to be a bit confusing. There were so many different sites to use for different standards, i.e the Common Core, NCTE, State Standards and other's that I don't know off of the top of my head. I find that I prefer the common Core standards as I feel they are a bit more clear, and you can apply at least one to any lesson. I also found the common core standards website easier to navigate through, whereas in the past I have struggled to navigate through the NCTE/ IRA Standards. Even though I've looked at the standards in several classes I still feel as though I have a lot of questions regarding them. One of the biggest questions I have is do I have to make sure every lesson lines up with a standard, or do I just have to make sure the unit itself lines up with a few? How closely do I have to follow the standards? Do I need to use both the Common Core and NCTE/ IRA Standards?

Rick Wormeli talks about "unwrapping the standards" and making sure students understand what standards you are holding them up to, and what the difference between getting an A or not is. I appreciate how he talks about  showing "evidence of the learning" as I find that to be the most important thing in terms of assignments. Throughout High school, in the rare occasions that we were allowed to revise we were never really asked to show evidence of learning, mostly I would just fix the mistakes I made, add a few more quotes and explanations and hope for the best. Wormeli wants his students to be able to show that they have actually learned the material that has been taught in class. In school kids are mostly worried about keeping their grades up, and a lot of times they memorize material for a test but they don't actually learn it. By showing that they have learned something rather than just memorized it for the time being, they are forced to think a bit more critically, which hopefully gives them a better understanding of the material.

RIWP Conference

Going into the conference I wasn't expecting a lot, especially from the workshops. I remember going to Promising Practices my Sophomore year and the workshop I attended wasn't very interesting. But I really enjoyed both of the workshops yesterday, and I feel that I learned quite a lot from both of them.

The first workshop I attended was "What's Love Got to Do With It?": Revolutionize Your Relationships and Practice. In this workshop the teachers running it had us do a station rotation, which was fun but we didn't get a chance to go to all of the stations. The two I got to experience were lead by Ryan Burns and Ashlee Burns. Ashlee's station taught us about the importance of creating a personal classroom as well as forming relationships with her students. She told us how she uses Will Smith videos in her classroom, and I think prior to this I wouldn't have ever thought to do that. The other station I went to was run by Ryan Burns. We read The Sound of Genuine and then talked about the sound of genuine in ourselves. One quote from the passage that resonated with me was "you are the only you that has ever lived".

I especially enjoyed the second workshop I attended was called Finding Solace in Comics: Graphic Novels that Support Social Emotional Learning. One of the teacher's running this program was Micael Gianfrancesco, who also happens to be the teacher I will be doing observations with in my SED 407 class in the next few weeks. During this class we talked about including graphic novels in the curriculum as well as the importance of drawing and letting your students doodle. Personally I have never really been a fan of doodling, especially in notebooks or on worksheets because it ruins the aesthetic for me. I was a bit of a perfectionist with my notes in high school, and I felt that doodles would ruin them. However I do understand that it is important to let students doodle in their classes, Cara Bean, the other professional running the session, told us that when we are anxious we can lose between 13-20 IQ points. I found this session to be insightful, and already started drafting up lesson plan ideas on how I could include graphic novels in my future classroom.

I also enjoyed the key note speaker, Tina Cane. I appreciated that she shared her personal work with us, and also enjoyed the letter she had us write. I did not enjoy turning it into a poem though. Lately I feel like everyone is trying to force poetry writing onto me and it is taking the joy out of the activity. I hate feeling forced to do things, and I have continued to feel forced into writing poems, which is not something I enjoy or want to do. I don't like to do these things because then I end up in my head, and for anyone that knows me, they know I can't properly be alone with my thoughts or else I end up in a dark place mentally. I don't think it's okay for anyone to force someone to write when they don't want to, as it is leading me to really dislike writing and dread doing it.